


Mission Kill Claudio

by monkeystypinghamlet



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, F/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 20:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2401298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monkeystypinghamlet/pseuds/monkeystypinghamlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Student by day, secret assassin by night - Beatrice Duke lives a double lifestyle. As "Agent Stark", she is assigned the job of killing Claudio which takes many twists and turns including an unexpected partner in crime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/99051325935/imagine-your-otp-as-bounty-hunters-assassins-etc).
> 
> As Claudio doesn't have a last name, I took the idea of "Claudio Matthews" from another fic so thank you for whoever came up with that!
> 
> I had so much fun writing this fic, I hope you like it! x

Bea was almost asleep when her phone beeped. It had been another long day of taking care of Hero and trying not to scream at Leo while still cleaning up from the party. And she was still doing her best not to think about it all. She'd considered turning her phone off, just this once, to stop the flow of messages asking about Hero. 

But she recognised that particular beep. She shot out of bed, her eyes accustomed to the dark by now, and saw the familiar green light blinking out of her phone. 

“Excellent,” she murmured. She unlocked her phone and plugged it into the computer. The screen lit up with neon green maps, locations, numbers and statistics. A message appeared across the screen:

_WELCOME AGENT STARK_

_TARGET: CLAUDIO MATTHEWS_

“Yes!” Bea exclaimed. She’d filed a request with the Agency a few days ago but she hadn’t even dared to dream that they’d accept it. They rarely accepted requests from their agents and Bea had certainly never gotten to carry out the deed herself. Tonight was going to be even more special than usual. 

As the information from the computer screen synced across to her phone, Bea took it all in and did her best to memorise as much as possible. She already knew where Claudio’s house was, of course, but facts like possible neighbour distractions, house alarms, street lamps and escape routes were all things that she needed to consider. 

Bea could remember the day that she’d been recruited very clearly - she’d just returned to Wellington after a summer in Auckland and she was filled with longing for Hero and all her friends who she never got to see during the school year. The first time her phone had lit up, she didn't understand what was happening. Bea was sure that her initiation call must've been the strangest one that HQ had ever conducted. 

But she had signed up. Little by little she completed her training, the Agency instructing her how to become fit and intelligent enough for the job. She took up running. She joined the football team. She was already a fan of science, but rejoiced at the chance when the Agency started training her in advanced physics by night when she was only 15. 

The night before her first job, she asked her mentor why she had been selected. 

“I mean, how?” Bea asked. “How do you know who to choose?”

“We monitor school records, sports competitions, newspaper columns,” Agent Taylor had replied. “We just look for the unexpected. The extraordinary.”

“So what did I do? Why did you choose me?”

“I’m afraid I’m not part of recruitment,” Agent Taylor said. “I can’t tell you that.”

“Oh, okay,” Bea said and kept on wondering. 

The calls came often in the first few months, mostly just sleeper jobs. Beatrice’s weapon of choice was poison darts so she was often sent simply to tranquillise targets when a kill wasn’t necessary. 

When Bea’s parents had told her they were going to Australia for a year, her chest had tightened. She knew that the Agency didn’t have an Australian branch. 

“So what do I do?” she asked Agent Taylor. 

“You spend every summer in Auckland,” her mentor pointed out. “You could always relocate there. We don’t have many assassins on hand in Auckland, you might even get more jobs there.”

So Bea had raised the idea to her parents and they had agreed. She would move in with Hero and Leo. 

Keeping her status as an assassin was by far the biggest secret that Bea had ever kept from her cousin. She wasn’t sure how she’d managed it at all. She’d considered telling Hero countless times, being held back only by the fact that if she broke oath, the Agency could kick her out. And Bea would be a normal teenager again with only her incredible speed and suspiciously good knack for problem solving as a hint to her dangerous past. 

Now here Bea was, tasked with a first: the familiar kill. 

She could see that she’d been assigned a partner, but that was standard for the first time of any type of job. With Agent Taylor still based in Wellington, Bea could only assume that she’d be meeting her new Auckland mentor again. 

Her phone beeped, the coordinates for the meeting point fully loaded. 

Bea smiled and went into her walk-in wardrobe. She pulled at the trick hinge on the edge of the full-length mirror to open up her weaponry. She grabbed her gear, slipping out of her pyjamas and into her black jumpsuit fully equipped with everything she might need. The dartgun was fully loaded, as per usual, so all Bea had to do was take it off the wall and slide the mirror back into place. 

She tied up her hair, pulled on a black face mask and opened the window. 

She was ready to kill Claudio. 


	2. Chapter 2

Beatrice scaled down the roof and climbed down the drainpipe. She’d done this so many times now that it was almost a habit but she still feel a thrill go up her spine as she swung off the roof and jumped down onto the street. 

Even though her eyesight was practically perfect, Bea slipped on her night vision goggles. Directions and numbers filled her peripheral version and she followed the instructions to meet her partner. The meeting point was about ten minutes north of Claudio’s house and she started to form her strategy on the way. Always be thinking ahead, she had been taught. Be prepared for anything.

As she neared the meeting coordinates, her partner’s signal came up on her map. They were getting closer and closer, and any minute now Bea would be running alongside them to her first familiar kill. She was almost grinning with excitement. 

She saw someone! A dark, thin figure was moving directly towards her. She kept her right hand clutched around the dartgun, just in case, but narrowed her eyes at the figure. 

Oh no. Oh no no no. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bea groaned. 

“ _Beatrice_?” Ben exclaimed. “ _You’re_ Agent Stark?” He lifted up his mask and it was, in fact, the very boy that Bea sat opposite in physics every day when she struggled to hide the fact that she could answer every single question that the teacher asked. She didn’t want to admit it, but he looked very good wearing all black. There was no denying it - his clothes matched the make of hers, and she could see the row of daggers strapped to his chest beneath his jacket.

He was finding the situation hysterical, apparently. He was laughing and they were still standing on the street, heavily exposed. Bea pulled him across into the bushes of a front yard. 

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” she groaned again. “ _You’re_ with the Agency?”

“Born and raised,” Ben told her. 

“What’s your codename?” she asked. “We should probably keep this formal.”

“Agent Sparrow,” he replied. Now it was her turn to laugh. 

“Sparrow? Sparrow! Out of all the names you could choose, you chose fucking sparrow, oh, that’s almost made everything worth it.” Then something dawned on her. “Wait. Agent Sparrow. That can’t be right. I thought Agent Sparrow had the highest kill count in Auckland.”

“Yep,” Ben confirmed. “You’re looking at one of New Zealand’s best.”

“But you’re always so awkward. I’ve seen you trip up _stairs_.”

“All part of the act. You know you do it, too.”

“Well, there’s a reason I haven’t joined a football team since I moved here.”

“Messina doesn’t even have a girls’ team," Ben pointed out. 

“Whatever,” Bea said. “I would’ve started one if I wasn’t supposed to be flying under the radar.”

“Haha, flying,” Ben said, flapping his arms like the wings of a bird. 

“Fucking weirdo,” Bea muttered. “Look, can we just get the job done?”

“Of course,” he replied. “I’m a professional.” Bea scoffed.

“A likely story.”

“Do you want to do this or not?”

“ _Fine._ Let’s go.”

Now that he’s wasn’t trying to hide his athletic ability, Bea realised that Ben was actually an incredibly fast runner. He kept up with her fast pace easily as they ran through backstreets on the way to Claudio’s house. _Out of everyone in the world_ Bea thought, _everyone in Auckland, everyone at Messina High, Benedick fucking Hobbes is an assassin._ The world was a confusing place sometimes.

When they reached Claudio’s house, Ben got out his phone and sent off a status update to HQ to let them know they’d arrived. It was easy enough to reach Claudio’s room, his house didn’t even have a fence and the drainpipe led straight up to his bedroom. They crouched on the roof, ready to strike when suddenly the bedroom light came on.

“Shit,” Bea muttered, immediately jumping across to the landing above the kitchen. She pressed her body down against the landing. She looked around and saw Ben hiding on the other side of the roof, standing still but his blue eyes shining out into the night.

“What do we do?” she mouthed to him. He pointed down at his phone, already contacting HQ for their next move. Bea took a quick look back to Claudio’s room. He was awake and sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. She couldn’t hear anything, but it seemed like he was crying.

Her phone lit up.

_CHANGE IN MISSION: TRANQUILLISE CLAUDIO MATTHEWS_

“What?” She glanced over at Ben, who shrugged. “What good is that going to do?”

Her phone buzzed again.

_DO NOT BE SEEN_

It would still be a challenge. Claudio was awake and while he might be distressed, if he saw either of them before he was tranquillised then their careers as assassins would be over. 

She took the lethal darts out of her gun and picked out the new tranquillising ones from the pockets of her suit. They still hurt, she remembered. Claudio was still going to experience pain from this.

But how were they going to enter? Bea was good at laser-cutting the glass out of window frames, but in just a second Claudio could look up and see her.

However, Ben seemed to be a step ahead of her. As he frantically pushed buttons on his phone, suddenly a burst of TV feedback came from downstairs in Claudio’s living room. The boy left the room to investigate. Bea left her hiding place and joined Ben in front of the window.

“Nice work,” she told him, fishing around in her pockets for the laser. “I wouldn’t have picked you for a hacker.”

“Glad to be of surprise,” he said. She found the laser and started cutting around the edge of the window. Once she was done, she removed the pane of glass and set it aside on the roof for resealing when they left. They climbed into Claudio’s bedroom and Ben turned to her.

“What next?” he asked.

“We hide and wait,” she said. “I’ve got my gun ready, I’ll shoot him in the back of the neck.” She heard the TV switch off downstairs, which meant that Claudio would be returning any minute. They both put their masks back on and hid either side of the doorway.

Bea could hear Claudio walking back up the stairs.

He was approaching the room. The footsteps got louder. Bea counted her breaths.

The second Claudio walked through the doorway, Bea raised her gun and shot him square in the back of the neck. Ben immediately jumped forwards and caught Claudio’s body before he collapsed on the ground.

“Lay him down,” Bea instructed, and Ben lowered Claudio onto the floor. She reached for his neck to retrieve the dart and felt for a pulse. Still alive. “We could still kill him,” Bea realised. “We’re in his room, we’ve got an escape route ready and he’s at our mercy.”

“That would be in direct violation of our orders,” Ben argued.

“But the original mission was to kill him!”

“And it changed. We have to follow the orders we’ve been given.” Bea had stopped listening to him and was already reloading her dartgun when they heard noise from downstairs.

“That’s not their TV, is it?” Bea asked Ben and he shook his head. He moved to the window but Bea stayed above Claudio.

“Bea, don’t do it,” Ben pleaded. “It’s against orders and that’s…that’s my best friend.”

“Your best friend?” Bea scoffed. “Why did you come here tonight if you don’t have the guts to kill him? That’s your job!”

“I don’t know what I was thinking, putting in that request,” Ben sighed. “I was just thinking about Hero and you and how awful it–” 

“Wait, request?” Bea asked but before she could process the thought, she heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Shit. Shit shit _shit_ ,” Bea murmured as she followed Ben out the window.

“Where’s your resealer?” he whispered frantically.

“I’m _getting it_ ,” she hissed. He held the glass in place while she ran the tool around the edges. “Come on…come on…” The footsteps had stopped climbing and were walking towards the room now.

“Bea, we have to go,” Ben warned, getting anxious.

“Al…most…there…” She waited as she held the resealer over the last section of glass and just as it clicked into place, the door opened.

Bea and Ben jumped off the roof as they heard the screams.


	3. Chapter 3

They ran for fifteen minutes straight before stopping to catch their breath. Ben pointed out a group of trees hidden away in a nearby park, too tired to speak, so they walked there and collapsed on the ground. Beatrice pulled off her mask and held her head in her hands.

“Oh God,” she sighed. She took out her phone to check the mission status.

_MISSION ACCOMPLISHED SUCCESSFULLY_

At least they hadn’t fucked that up. Bea couldn’t look up at Ben. She couldn’t bear to think about what she’d almost done.

Out of nowhere, she started crying. It killed her to cry in front of anyone, let alone Ben, but something inside her broke as she thought about how sad Hero was, how awful Claudio had been and how she’d reached out to the Agency for help.

“Bea, it’s okay,” Ben said to her. “Please, don’t, there’s just no reason - everything will be okay.” There was the awkwardness in Ben that Bea knew. While physically he may have been acting, it seemed his personality as a student and an assassin were no different.

“I can’t do this,” Bea said. “I almost killed Claudio.”

“You were overcome by emotion,” he reassured her.

“God, I’m sorry,” she said, wiping away the tears and trying to stop them from coming. “I’m not usually like this. I swear. On Hero’s life.”

“Don’t worry,” Ben said. “You’ve been through a lot.” Bea forced herself to look up at him.

“Why are you being so nice?” she asked suspiciously. He just shrugged. “No, seriously - first you stayed behind after the party when everyone else scampered, you brought round cookies yesterday and now you’re willing to _console_ me?”

“Look, let’s get you home,” was all Ben said. They got up and started walking down the street towards where Bea lived. “I know things are horrible and strange right now,” Ben started, “but you’re still an assassin, Bea. No matter what happened tonight.”

“I almost–”

“But you didn’t.”

“Well, you talked me out of it.”

“I only told you what you would’ve figured out eventually. Just think about it: you’re an assassin. You run around at night like a total badass in that fantastic jumpsuit and you’ve kept it a complete secret from everyone you know. That’s something, alright.”

“Did you just say I look fantastic?”

“Shut up. I’m trying to be nice.”

“I’m not sure I like it. It feels weird.”

“Alright, fine, you look atrocious. Better?”

“Much.” Bea smiled.

“What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t worry about Hero because you’ll figure it out. You always do. You’re amazing and wonderful - but, no, at the same time, you’re still my enemy and I - I think it’ll work out.”

“You’re such an idiot,” Bea told him. “I’d say the same about you, you know. About being a great assassin and all that.”

“Thanks.” Ben puffed out his chest. “About time someone knew about the amazing things I get up to at night. And I’m not talking about–”

“Yeah, enough, I get it,” Bea said. “Hey, what did you mean about putting in a request?”

“Oh,” Ben said. “I submitted Claudio’s name. Strange, don’t you think, that they assigned me to my own request?”

“But I requested it, too,” Bea said. “Wow. I guess that’s why they accepted it, because we both submitted it. I didn’t think you’d do something like that.”

“You thought wrong,” Ben said and he smiled at her. Bea didn’t know what to say. Thank you? That wasn’t the right thing at all. She sighed. 

“I think Leo’s going to make me go to school tomorrow,” Bea said.

“Hero not coming?”

“No. But I can’t afford to miss class.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll protect you.”

“You really think I need protecting?”

“Well, after tonight, I guess not really. But the offer remains.”

“How chivalrous of you. Tomorrow should be interesting, I guess. You’re not just Ben the dick to me, anymore.”

“I’m not?” Ben said, his eyes lighting up.

“No. You’re Ben the assassin.”

“Oh. Right. Of course. But you’re not planning on breaking oath, right? This is a secret we’re going to keep between us?”

“Of course,” Bea said. “You wouldn’t tell anyone, would you?”

“No. Pinky swear.” Ben stopped in the middle of the footpath and held up his pinky. Bea grinned and wrapped her finger around his. Their eyes met and she realised that they were one-fifth of the way to holding hands. She let go, and then realised that was the opposite of what she wanted to do.

“Ben?” she said softly.

“Yeah?” he said, not breaking the gaze. She leaned forwards and kissed him. His arms snaked around her waist and she lifted a hand to his cheek. A feeling of warmth entered her heart and it didn’t leave when they broke apart. She still had her forehead balanced against his and he was still holding her.

“I think,” Ben said. “There’s another secret we’ve both been keeping from each other.”

“I like you,” Bea said quickly. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I really, really like you–” He kissed her back to stop her talking.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how incredible I think you are,” Ben told her when they broke apart.

“We have all night,” Bea offered and he laughed.

They walked into the dark of the night together, hand in hand, Agent Stark and Agent Sparrow: ready to save the world.


End file.
